Rebranding Jewish worshippers

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The Palestinian cause has made extremely effective use of rebranding to delegitimize Israel. For instance, what for the past 2,500 years were Judea and Samaria, the ancient heartland of Israel, are today mostly commonly referred to as the “West Bank.”

Now the Palestinian media, in its English-language outlets, would like you to start viewing Jewish worshippers who dare to ascend Judaism’s holiest site, Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, in a new light. Of late, all English-language Palestinian news reports have referred to these worshippers as “Jewish fanatics.”

It doesn’t matter that the vast majority of these groups of Jews visit the Temple Mount peacefully, even adhering to Muslim rules that they come without Bibles and refrain from saying even silent Jewish prayers. To the Palestinians they are “fanatics,” and so the rest of the world must also see them that way.

[NOTE: The same restrictions apply to Christians visitors to the Temple Mount, which is controlled by the Islamic Trust, or Waqf.]

“The obvious reason for their choice of the word ‘fanatic’ in English is to deflect the idea that Jews have basic human rights to practice their religion. By any reasonable yardstick, Jews should have an (at least) equal rights to visit the Temple Mount as Muslims do. [But] Palestinian Arab leaders…are subtly trying to equate Jews who are peacefully visiting their holiest site with Al Qaeda-type fanatics, implying that these Jews are violent and unstable.”

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